Feb 29 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Mike Zapler San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

State lawmakers Thursday unveiled a package of bills designed to spur investment in clean-energy research and help California compete with other states and nations for green jobs.

Several of the bills, however, are costly or would involve incurring billions in debt, which could hurt their prospects as the Legislature grapples with what is now an estimated $8 billion deficit. (The governor and lawmakers took action earlier this month that is expected to cut in half what was then a projected $16 billion deficit.)

Still, legislators and representatives of green-tech companies said state government can play an important role in boosting a fledgling but potentially lucrative industry for California.

"The digital revolution was heavily subsidized," said Assemblywoman Lori Saldana, D-San Diego, who is pitching a $2 billion bond measure (AB 2003) to invest in solar, wind and other alternative-energy technologies. "And it was a very smart investment by the federal government."

Two senators are proposing similar bond measures, one also for $2 billion and another for $3 billion. And Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, has a bill (SB 1760) calling on state agencies to craft a plan to spend $200 million on green-energy research.

Not all the ideas would cost the state big dollars. Assemblyman Ira Ruskin, D-Los Altos, wants the state to create standards for a voluntary "carbon labeling

program" that would allow manufacturers to tag products with information about their carbon footprints.

Sen. Dean Florez, D-Bakersfield, meanwhile, wants to establish a standard for investors to gauge how environmentally friendly California businesses are (SB 1550) before deciding where to put their money. He called the idea "a tool to help investors know who the good actors are when it comes to cleaning our air and being responsible stewards of our planet."

The proposals come as state regulators work to implement AB 32, the ambitious 2006 initiative to slash state greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020. Thursday, a committee of business executives, many in the green-technology field, presented a report outlining ways to streamline government regulations and use technology to meet the bill's mandate.

One idea, said Jim Hawley, senior vice president of TechNet, is to make government land available for large-scale "solar fields." Officials can also offer tax incentives, he said, to encourage research in green technology and prod alternative energy firms to build plants in California.

The full report is available at www.arb.ca.gov/cc/etaac/etaac.htm .

Contact Mike Zapler at mzapler@mercurynews.com or (916) 441-4603.